innervation

Innervation

the supply of nerves to organs and tissues, which provides for their communication with the central nervous system (CNS).

A distinction is made between afferent (centripetal) and efferent (centrifugal) innervation. Signals about the condition of an organ and the processes taking place in it are perceived by sensitive nerve endings (receptors) and transmitted to the CNS over the centripetal fibers. The responses that regulate the functioning of the organs are transmitted along the centrifugal nerves, enabling the CNS to keep regulating and altering the activity of organs and tissues in accordance with the body’s requirements. The function-regulating role of the CNS is different for different organs. In some organs (for example, in skeletal muscle or salivary gland) the signals from the CNS determine their entire activity, so that complete disconnection from the CNS, or denervation, results in atrophy of the organ involved. Some organs (for example, the heart and intestine) can act under the influence of impulses originating in the organs themselves. In these cases, denervation does not result in atrophy but only limits, to some extent, the adaptive reactions, which persist both because of humoral regulation and because of the presence of a nervous system within the organ.

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